|
Payan pleads innocent to murder |
|
Tuesday, 30 June 2009 |
|
By Emily Hone BLACKFOOT — Courtney James Payan pleaded innocent Monday in Bingham County 7th District Court to a charge of second-degree murder in the May 25 stabbing death of 21-year-old Robert Padilla.
Both are from Blackfoot.
Judge Darren B. Simpson scheduled Payan’s jury trial for Oct. 27 at 9 a.m. and he was continued in custody in lieu of $250,000 bond.
Simpson granted a motion from Payan’s attorney, James Archibald of Idaho Falls, to provide transcripts of the preliminary hearings for Payan on June 16 and Jeffery Harrington on June 11.
Harrington, reportedly a friend of Padilla, was arrested May 27 and charged with accessory to a felony for allegedly withholding information from the police about the stabbing.
The charge was dismissed by 7th District Magistrate Judge Charles L. Roos following a preliminary hearing. Roos said the state had not presented sufficient evidence to support the charge against Harrington.
Roos found probable cause that Payan, 23, inflicted Padilla’s wounds, and following his preliminary hearing bound him over to District Court to answer to the charge of second-degree murder.
Archibald said Monday, some of the same witnesses testified at both hearings and gave conflicting testimony. He needs the record of that testimony to help prepare his case, Archibald said.
The attorney asked the court also to pay for an independent physician to review medical data from Padilla’s death. He said the autopsy findings contradict testimony given at Payan’s preliminary hearing regarding events that transpired in the emergency room of Bingham Memorial Hospital the morning Padilla was brought there.
Representing the state, Bingham County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Dave Hooste told the court he agrees with the request for the hearing transcripts, but said he plans to file a written objection to the hiring of an independent physician.
Simpson gave Archibald and Hooste 14 days to file their written motions.
According to emergency room staff, Padilla was dead on, or shortly after, arrival at BMH around 2 a.m. on May 25 of stab wounds to the chest and abdomen.
Police said the wounds were suffered during a fight between Payan, Padilla and several other people outside a mobile home court on South Broadway.
According to police reports and testimony at the preliminary hearings for Payan and Harrington, accompanied by a few other people, Payan and Padilla met in the early morning hours of May 25 to have a one-on-one fight over a personal matter.
During the fight Padilla was struck on the head with a metal pipe by one of the people accompanying Payan, and a general fight erupted in which weapons came into play, police said. Padilla was stabbed during the fight. He was loaded into a car by his brother and some friends and driven to the hospital where the emergency room doctor pronounced him dead.
Epifanio Dearcos de la Ascuncion Sr., 58, is accused of striking Padilla with the pipe and scheduled to have a hearing Thursday at 8:30 a.m. before Roos on a charge of aggravated battery.
He is free on $10,000 bail.
|
|
Last Updated ( Thursday, 02 July 2009 )
|
